Flutterby™! : On education, marshmallows, willpower and trust

A lot of people are forwarding around Salon: New data shows school “reformers” are full of it, that it's the economic status of the child, not the quality of the school, that leads to a child's success or failure in the education system.

Lots of questions this raises, and I was originally going to let it slide under the "school works as a filter system more than an education system", but this morning MeFi had an update to the "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment" which suggested that it isn't so much the willpower to resist eating that first marshmallow, but the trust that the second marshmallow will indeed be forthcoming.

The University of Rochester press release talking about Rational snacking: Young children’s decision-making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability, Kidd, Palmeri, Aslin (2012) summarizes:

Children who experienced unreliable interactions with an experimenter waited for a mean time of three minutes and two seconds on the subsequent marshmallow task, while youngsters who experienced reliable interactions held out for 12 minutes and two seconds. Only one of the 14 children in the unreliable group waited the full 15 minutes, compared to nine children in the reliable condition.

Or: If the person's experience is that, indeed, there'll be a payoff, they'll tough it out. If they don't, they won't. If we're looking for ways to nurture citizens who will help raise the society we share, there are probably some lessons about early childhood education here...